The Merchant's Mark (11 page)

‘A what?’ Andy’s open-mouthed stare and swelling indignation were answer in themselves. ‘He never – In the cooper’s yard? At Linlithgow? There was no a word
of it in the morning, he just brought the cart round to the Blue Lion his lone when we was ready to get away. What thief’s this, mistress? What was taken? Did they catch anybody?’

‘So you weren’t in the yard yourself?’ Kate said.

He shook his head. ‘No in the morning, we just set straight off for the West Port to get out afore the traffic coming in blocked the gate. See, my maister’s got an agreement with
Willie Riddoch,’ he expanded. ‘We don’t pay him by the night, they settle it up at the quarter-day atween them. But what’s this about a thief, my leddy?’

‘It wasn’t clear,’ said Kate. ‘I’d hoped you could give us a better story. It seems from what Billy says as if there was a fight in the yard, and someone got away
by the back yett, but he claims nobody went near the cart.’

‘But did the cooper hear nothing? Has Billy invented it all, maybe?’

‘The cooper came down and roused his men,’ Alys said, ‘and they searched the yard, to no purpose. So Billy said.’

‘I don’t like it,’ muttered Andy. ‘Someone should get to Linlithgow, ask at Willie Riddoch what happened.’

‘My brother –’ Kate began, and was interrupted by a shrill, furious voice from the next room.

‘If you think I’m staying another hour wi they unnatural brats, wi an ill-natured auld besom like you in the kitchen and your like in the yard –’

‘It’s none of my part to raise those bairns,’ declared another, more distant voice, ‘I’ve enough to do cooking for a dozen, and no money in my hand beyond tomorrow
–’

‘Well, that’s no trouble o mine,’ said the first voice, and a plump young woman backed into the hall from the chamber beyond it. ‘If you choose to stay here, you can deal
wi what comes.’

‘Aye, Mall,’ said Andy grimly. The maidservant swung round, plainly startled to find the hall occupied, and Babb appeared in the doorway behind her, carrying a tray.

‘What ever is the matter?’ said Alys, moving forward. ‘Why should you not stay? Surely the bairns need you?’

‘Them?’ said Mall, and tossed her head. ‘They never mind a word I say, why should they need me? I tell you, the wee one’s possessed and the other never heeds a word I
say, and I’ve been here long enough –’

Babb came quietly into the room to set the tray down on a convenient chest. Behind her another, older woman, spare and upright, hurried across the further chamber. Her apron was stained and
scorched, though her linen coif appeared clean; the cook, Kate assumed.

‘You leave now,’ said Andy, ‘and you’ll not see a plack of what’s owing for the quarter, I can tell ye that, my girl.’

‘You have stayed this long,’ said Alys, ‘why not a little longer? Just till your maister comes back? Who will mind the bairns if you go now?’

‘Who’s to say he’ll come back?’ said the nursemaid pertly. ‘That’s no what I’ve heard at all. And what wi him locked up in the castle for murder, and
this auld –’ she jerked her head at Andy, apparently at a loss for a suitable term – ‘turning folks away without a by-your-leave, and now Ursel telling me what I can do and
I canny do, I tell you I’ve had more than I can stomach o Morison’s Yard. I’m away up to fetch my gear, and you can mind the bairns yoursels if it worries you.’

‘And well rid o a bad-tempered hizzy,’ said the older woman from the door, her voice rising again, ‘no fit to have charge o decent folk’s bairns, trollop that ye are, and
filthy with it! Where were you all this noontime, tell me that, Mall Anderson, while I’d to mind they lassies?’

‘And I praise all the saints that’s named, Ursel Campbell, I’ll not have to eat another mouthful you’ve burnt!’ retorted Mall. She flounced away towards another
doorway at the far side of the hall, but recoiled with a shriek as she reached it. ‘St Anne protect us, what’s that? Oh, it’s the deil’s get. Come off the stair, you, and
let me pass.’

‘No,’ said a small voice from the shadows beyond the doorway.

‘Come here, my wee pet,’ said Ursel in gentler tones. ‘Come on, the both of ye, we’ll see if I’ve a bit gingerbread for good lassies.’

‘Aren’t good lassies,’ said the little voice. ‘She said so.’

‘Get out of my way,’ said Mall between her teeth, ‘afore I come up to you.’

‘Why?’ asked the voice, with what seemed to be genuine curiosity.

Kate, who had watched the drama unfold in amazement, suddenly found her tongue.

‘Mall,’ she said with authority, ‘stand aside from the door. Wynliane, Ysonde, come down here to me.’ And thanks be to Our Lady, she thought, that I asked Augie their
names.

After a moment the two children stepped into the room, moving silently, hand in hand. As soon as they were clear of the door Mall brushed past them and on to the stair, and the little girls came
forward hesitantly into the lighter part of the hall. Across the room, Babb folded her arms, watching.

‘Come here,’ Kate said encouragingly.

‘Why are you in our house?’ asked the smaller one. ‘My da’s no here.’

‘Mind your manners, Ysonde,’ said Andy. ‘This is Lady Kate Cunningham and that’s Mistress Mason. Where’s your obedience, then?’

‘Don’t got one.’

Ursel clicked her tongue.

‘He means a curtsy, like I taught you,’ she said. The child shot her a glance and stuck her bottom lip out.

‘Maybe they’re too little to make a curtsy,’ said Alys.

‘I expect you’re right,’ agreed Kate. Andy opened his mouth to contradict, and was silenced by a glare from Ursel as the younger child, scowling, arranged her bare feet with
care, spread her tattered brocade skirts and sank into a rather wobbly salute. Her sister looked at her from behind her elf-locks and rather hesitantly copied her, and Kate clapped her hands as
they straightened up.

‘Very good,’ she said. ‘I can see you were well taught.’

The older girl stared timidly at her, but the younger was not listening. Chin up, she was glaring at the ceiling; Kate, following her gaze, realized that she too had been aware of Mall’s
footsteps, which had now halted.

‘Now will you come and get a bit gingerbread?’ said Ursel. Kate hushed her, listening, and they heard the clunk of a kist lid closing.

‘That’s my da’s kist,’ observed Ysonde.

‘You don’t know that,’ said Ursel.

‘Do.’

‘It could be any of the kists up yonder,’ the old woman reasoned, ‘yours or your da’s or –’ She broke off, and the child finished for her:

‘Or my mammy’s. Wasn’t either my mammy’s, and not Wynliane’s and mine neither. It was my da’s in his chamber where he sleeps.’

‘We’ll find out,’ said Andy grimly. He moved to the house door as Mall came down the stairs, wrapped in her plaid and carrying a canvas satchel. The older child shrank silently
towards Kate where she sat enthroned in the oak chair, and Andy went on, ‘Right, my lassie. Let’s see what’s in yon scrip before you take it out of here.’

‘What’s in my scrip’s none of your mind!’ retorted Mall, clutching at the bag. ‘You can just get your nose out of my business, you interfering old ruddoch, and let
me by!’

‘Mall,’ said Alys, ‘what did you take out of the kist just now?’

‘I never touched any kist!’

‘We all heard the lid closing,’ said Kate.

The girl bridled. ‘Well, maybe I just bumped it a wee bit. I never touched a thing inside it,’ she averred.

‘So you won’t mind showing us what’s in your scrip?’ said Alys gently.

‘Aye, I do mind!’ Mall looked around, but the other door was blocked by Babb’s considerable bulk. ‘Let me pass, Andy Paterson, since you’re so eager to get me gone
from here, and you’ll no bother speiring into my belongings either!’

‘Then may I look in your scrip? I am not of your household.’ Alys came forward with her hand out, and Mall ducked sideways, clutching the satchel to her again. Her plaid slipped, and
at Kate’s side the older girl suddenly pointed and screamed shrilly. There was a flurry of movement, and Ysonde was beside her nurse, tugging at the plaid, shouting.

‘It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s no yours! Give it back!’

‘Get it off me, the wee deil!’ exclaimed Mall, swinging her free arm wildly, impeded by the need to keep hold of her satchel as well as the plaid. The other child was still
screaming, and both Andy and Ursel added their voices to the mêlée, but Babb strode forward and with one large hand scooped Ysonde shouting into the air while with the other she tugged
the plaid from Mall’s back. As the swathe of hodden grey wool came free, several more bundles of cloth fell to the floor from its folds.

‘Put me down! Put me down!’ shouted Ysonde, but Wynliane’s screams halted abruptly as she pounced on the bundle nearest her. Kate, leaning forward from where she sat, saw that
it was a linen garment, finely embroidered. The child hugged it to her, and reached with her other hand for the next item, which seemed to be a length of tawny worsted cloth.

‘Could these be from Mistress Morison’s kist?’ Kate asked.

‘Come, Mall,’ said Alys. ‘Let us see what else you have there.’

Mall was inclined to go on arguing, but Babb settled the matter by putting Ysonde on the floor, removing the satchel from the nursemaid’s grasp, and upending it on to the settle beside
Alys. Ursel hurried forward, exclaiming in annoyance.

‘That’s my St Ursula, and you know it, thieving hizzy that you are, Mall Anderson.’ She seized a small, brightly coloured picture from the bench, and Kate recognized the sort
of cheap painted woodcut print commonly sold at fairs. ‘And that’s mine and all,’ added Ursel, snatching up a comb, ‘and I don’t know why you’d bother to steal
it, you’ve no notion of how to use it. And is this no the box Jamesie was looking for last week, Andy?’

‘That’s my good belt buckle, I ken that,’ said Andy, coming forward from the door.

‘That’s my bitie,’ said Ysonde from the floor, where she was helping her sister to retrieve the scattered garments. She pointed to the coral teether with its dangling ribbon.
‘That’s mine. She can’t have that.’

‘Aye, Ursel, it’s Jamesie’s box right enough,’ said Andy. ‘And how did it get in your scrip, you wee – Stop her! Get her!’

He sprang forward as Mall reached the door, but as his outstretched hand touched her sleeve Babb collided with him on the same errand and the girl eluded them both. Disentangling themselves they
set off down the steps after her, pursued by Alys.

Kate, left sitting by the cold hearth, looked from the children clutching their dead mother’s clothes to the old woman picking her property out of the magpie assortment on the bench, and
then round the shadowy hall. With a sudden feeling of making a momentous decision, she said to Ursel, ‘And who will look after the bairns now?’

‘I wish she had not got away,’ said Alys.

‘Aye,’ growled Andy. ‘I’d ha had her charged wi theft, and a pleasure it’d been too.’

‘She was that quick,’ said Babb, handing ale to her mistress. ‘She must ha jinked down one vennel or another, and out of sight.’

‘Is it worth laying a complaint?’ asked Kate.

‘No wi John Anderson,’ said Andy. ‘He’s her uncle.’

‘We got her scrip,’ said Babb, ‘and what she had hid under her plaid forbye.’

‘Is anything else missing?’ Alys wondered. ‘Anything she could have hidden about her person?’

‘Down her busk, ye mean, mistress?’ said Andy. ‘Here, I never thought o that.’ He took the beaker of ale from Babb and sat down in obedience to Kate’s gesture.
‘Trouble is, the maister’s no here to tell us what’s missing. Those bairns might ken,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘Where are they, anyway?’

‘With Ursel for now,’ said Kate. ‘She had to see to the men’s dinner.’

‘And I must go home to see about my father’s, and Kate with me,’ said Alys. ‘But I think we must return after it. There are things I must ask you, Andy. For one thing, do
you know where the barrel has gone?’

‘What barrel? That barrel, ye mean, mistress?’ Andy gave the matter some thought. ‘I think Mattha Hog wanted to buy it for a show, to keep in the tavern. I could find out for
ye.’

‘Would you send one of the men to ask before his dinner?’ Alys requested.

‘I could. What are ye at, mistress?’

‘Billy said the cart lay at a dyer’s yard on Tuesday night.’ Andy nodded agreement. ‘He was complaining about logwood stains on his hose. If there is logwood dust on the
barrel, we can be certain it was on the cart on Tuesday night.’

‘How will you tell that?’ asked Andy, staring at her.

She smiled, but shook her head and drank some of her ale. ‘Find where the barrel is,’ she said.

‘And what about the bairns, my leddy?’ said Babb. ‘That Ursel’s right, she’s enough to do seeing to the men’s dinner without a pair of wee tykes like yon
underfoot all day.’

‘I can gie her a hand getting them to bed, maybe,’ said Andy doubtfully.

‘They should be washed,’ said Alys.

‘Aye, well, that’s no happened for a while.’

‘Does any of your men have a sister or a sweetheart or the like?’ Kate asked. ‘A lassie who’d come in to help for a few days?’

Andy looked at her, chewing his lip.

‘I’ll ask,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t think they do, but. There’s only Jamesie that’s courting, and his leman’s well placed in Andrew
Hamilton’s household.’

‘I could spare one of my household for a day or so,’ said Alys.

‘Besides,’ continued Andy, pursuing his own train of thought, ‘who’d direct a lassie? I’ve no notion what’s to do for a pair of bairns like that, and
she’d maybe no mind Ursel.’

‘She’d mind me,’ said Kate confidently. ‘I’ll be back here after I’ve had my dinner. Babb and I can sleep here the night.’

‘I thought there would have been more argument,’ said Alys, avoiding a puddle.

‘I did too,’ said Kate from the back of her mule, ‘both about me staying at Morison’s and about this idea.’

‘Where is this Hog tavern, anyway?’ Alys wondered. ‘He said the Gallowgait, but we are nearly at the port and I have not seen it.’

‘Andy seems to know where he’s going.’ Kate nodded at the small man making his way along the busy street just ahead of them. ‘Come up, Wallace,’ she said as her
mule balked at the sight of a towering cartload of kindling. Babb stepped up from behind them and seized his reins in her free hand. ‘I can get him by, Babb, give him his head.’